


A Machine Built out of Guilt and Grief

by yaodai



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Haruno Sakura, Boruto Era, Founding of Konoha, Gen, It get's better, Mokuton User Haruno Sakura, Nonbinary Orochimaru, Other, Post-Apocalypse, Sakura is on a mission, TW:Suicide, eventual timetravel, everyone is dying tbh, god help me, no beta we die like men, orochimaru discovered them all, the worst things about immortality, tw: apocalypse, tw: children dying, tw:mercy killing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 07:24:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18633520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaodai/pseuds/yaodai
Summary: The aliens kept coming until the world became a wasteland of death and white roots.Sakura travels between the small pockets of survivors, hunting down the one person that could help finish her seal and save the world, back when there still was a world to save.





	A Machine Built out of Guilt and Grief

Chapter 1: The End

  
  


"You really are going, aren't you?" Temari asked.

She was leaning against the door frame, sharp eyes judgmental, a little sad and zeroed on Sakura's hands.

"I am," Sakura replied with a deep groan. She straightened her backs and winced when something popped in her spine.

Packing bags was always something she hated and it didn't change even after she hit her forties.  
Quite the opposite, because now her body was protesting even more against hovering over the bag for too long.

"You could just continue your research here," Temari said, repeating the words that were spoken yesterday and the day before.

"We both know I can't," Sakura brushed her hair aside. She had cut it not that long ago so they wouldn’t get in the way, but somehow managed to do it unevenly, ending up with face full of unruly hair. "Besides, one less mouth to feed. It would prolong the survival of everyone here."

Temari winced.

"You sound like you're just going to find a Zetsu."

"I'm not. But I'm telling the truth and we both know it," Sakura ran fingers through her hair again, more because she felt like she needed to do something with her hands rather than because she needed to do so. "Food is slowly running out, no matter how well this outpost was prepared for... whatever Orochimaru was preparing it for."

And then there will be no more of it, because the world was dead.  
Completely dead, suffocated by the hellish roots of an alien tree, sucked dry out of chakra and life.  
Nothing grew anymore, nothing was even rotting - corpses and dead animals were just lying where they fell, slowly drying out.

There weren't that many of those anyway  - most of living things were devoured when the Tree was still alive, roots moving and hunting and sucking the life out of whatever they touched.  
A true shame, scavenging the morbid remains became a way to prolong the survival of the few pockets of humanity that managed to find shelter in time.

Funny, how secret bases of a mad scientist and a major pain in the ass of everyone became the only places that still were capable of keeping people alive.

"I've tried everything that came to my mind," Sakura continued. "I've talked with everyone who knew anything about sealing, I've scouted every ruin that had the slightest chance of holding anything useful... I need to go."

Even if.

Even if the next hideout would leave her as empty handed as she was now, even if there would be no one else to talk about sealing with, she was not going to give up.

"If this is what's keeping you going," Temari sighed in defeat. "Just promise me, keep on living as long as you can, alright?"

Sakura grinned.

It was all bare teeth and no humor at all, but at least she tried.

"You know me!"

"I'll make sure you have enough to get you to the hideout on the border of the Land of Fire," Temari declared. "But then... we don't know if there's anyone in there. or if there are any resources left."

"Thank you," Sakura said..

She was saving candies from her rations since she started to suspect that she was not going to find her answers here.

It felt a little bit like she was twelve again, carefully putting away caramels and debating over every vitamin one, only now she was trading them for food instead of putting in the bowl and letting them just sit there, colorful, wrappers shining in the sun even after getting slightly dusty.

The promise of food was great - despite how determined she was with exchanging all her sweets, she didn't managed to gather much.  
And she didn't know what she was walking into - would there be people living in the hideout? Would it be empty and forgotten? Or maybe it was one of those that were found when the Tree was still alive and the ground swarmed with Zetsu?  
Sakura needed to be ready for the worst case scenario.

"What if you don't find what you're looking for there?" Temari asked.

"I'm going to hit next hideout," Sakura shrugged. "And then another. There's a ridiculous amount of them all over the elemental countries."

Temari shook her head and chuckled darkly.

"I have no idea what Orochimaru was planning before it became this shitfest. Taking over the world?"

"Who knows," Sakura rolled her eyes.

She worked with the Snake Sannin on a few occasions and the only thing that seemed to motivate him was curiosity and whims. Checking how it would be like to rule the world seemed to be as Orochimaru thing to do as anything else.  
At least there were places to hide, impossible to notice when you didn't know where to look and covered in seals , the only thing that let them survive.

"Whatever keeps you going, I guess!" Temari groaned. "I won't be able to talk you out of it. I don't even see a reason to talk you out of it, besides me wanting to have someone to talk to that's not an absolute idiot."

"Please, Yodo is a smart girl."

"One more sad ballad about the past and I'm going to strangle her."

"Hey, if it's making her go on... and people like her songs."

"Because there's literally nothing else," Temari said dryly.

For all the resources squirreled in the hideout, there wasn't even a single set of cards in the complex.  
No music, no books safe for whatever research of Orochimaru got left behind, nothing that could stove off the absolute boredom.

After the shock and terror passed, after there was nothing else to do but continue to live, the survivors discovered just how horrible it was, to not have anything to do.

"When are you leaving?"

"At dawn," Sakura replied. "I want to travel for as long as I can."

 "Seems logical," Temari nodded. "I'll make sure you have what you need by the evening. For now... you should rest, I guess. This is going to suck."

She stepped away and reached for the doorknob.

"Temari?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry," Sakura said quietly. "I'm really sorry for leaving you like this.

"It's alright!" Temari gave her the fakest grin ever. "I'm not alone and I'll just keep doing what I was doing before. You're leaving this hideout in the best hands!"

They were working together since the beginning, since Ino managed to reach them and shove knowledge about all of Orochimaru's hideouts into as many minds as she could reach.  
They've led people together to this hideout, trying to save as many as it was possible - back then still hoping that there was some way to win, to rebuild, for the things to go back to normal.  
They've kept things together when people finally understood that everything was lost, wrestling some order and common sense into the group of survivors and they've cried together over their brothers, children, friends when they were alone in the quiet of the night.

It felt unfair to leave Temari now, so close to the end, when they all could count the days that were left for them to live simply by checking how much food was left.   
She could give up. Give up and just stay here, enjoying the warmth of a close person until there was nothing there to enjoy but Sakura was not one to give up. Ever.

And Sakura made her mind months ago, when she started shyly tweaking at the time-space seals of the Fourth Hokage, theorizing how to move across time instead of space.

She couldn't possibly save the world now, not when it was all dead and gone, but way back, when the life was thriving and shinobi were occupied with one war after another, unknowingly seeping chakra into the ground that would wake up the monsters that would face and devour their grandchildren?

Her seal was filled with chakra to the point of almost bursting and another one was slowly blooming right below it, because there was nothing else to do with chakra but to gather it; no missions to run, no enemies to defeat, not even people to heal.

It wasn't a problem.  
What was stopping her was the fact she still didn't understand the sealing art enough to perform even the normal Hiraishin and the only way to learn more was to wander out into the wastelands and seek for clues.

Or people.

In the darkness of the night, all alone and listening to nothing but darkness, Sakura let herself hope that she would be able to find not only another of Orochimaru’s hideouts but Orochimaru himself.

xxx  


Once it took three days for a ninja to travel between Sunagakure and Konoha.  
Once, the land between the two villages wasn't riddled with dead roots, gargantuan and twisted together into a three dimensional maze.

The wood was as white as a body of a Zetsu, harsh in touch and cold, the surface slick and branchless making it difficult to climb up without slipping back down.

"At least touching it is not going to kill me," Sakura said out loud, despite the fact there was no one that was listening.

Probably because of that.

She saw how these roots killed, back during the Fourth war and then next invasion and then another one, the one that ended it all.  
She saw people trapped and crushed, she saw as the mere touch of these white roots sucked the life out of people leaving just empty, dried out husks.

Sakura slowly put on her gloves, fully aware that she was procrastinating and ran fingers down the ninja uniform Temari Dug out for her.

It was a mix between what the Sound nin were wearing all these years ago when Orochimaru decided to invade Konoha, all dark colors and black and white camouflage pattern that still didn't make the slightest sense and a Suna-style long poncho, the best thing they had available to protect from wind.

"Alright then!" Sakura clapped her hands together and picked the root that was angled in a way that would make climbing it possible.

She didn't want to use a lot of chakra,  still determined to save everything she could in case the discovery was near.

How high was that thing anyway? Two stores? Four? It was hard to tell, because it was ages since she saw any building, at least a whole one.

When it comes to the ruins... Well, she scouted her fair amount of what was left of cities, hoping to find anything : survivors, supplies, a single place that wasn't ruined.

It was always a morbid experience, the sight of what once was a city filled with life strangled and torn apart by the roots. The corpses, dried out bones crunching under her feet, hands desperately reaching out... it was going to stay forever in her head, returning again and again during the quiet night.

Sakura spat and slid down the root, entering the white maze, marking her path with a kunai.

Safe for the sun, there was nothing else to led her forward.

The first night caught her by surprise, creeping upon her unnoticed when she was trying to beat some distance down at the ground level, slipping through the shadows and narrows spaces and noticing the darkness only when the night chill came.  
Sakura dropped on the ground pretty much where she stood because why not.

The roots were at the very least shielding her from wind and would offer at least partially shelter from the rain if it happens.

Carefully opening the storage scroll - one of those Kabuto used to keep his... collection on hand - she released the first seal.

There were some bars for tomorrow - fruits and nuts, sticky and sweet and close to their due date, because at this point everything was - and a can of tuna for now, along with a handful of old type crackers, the ones that looked like domino cubes and were so dense they tasted like you were chewing a piece of wall.

Sakura chewed, painfully aware how loud she was despite trying to chew as quietly as possible - there was nothing but her and win in this empty, dead place.

Leaning against the roots, Sakura wondered how this place looked like before.

It was hard to remember, she discovered.  
She remembered people - voices, faces, smiles - but plants? How a forest looked like, such a silly thing to forget for a Konoha-nin, what was the smell of a grassland in early summer, when everything was blooming?  
Hell, even how it felt to have blades of grass brushing against her skin as she moved.

They’ve tried to bring plants back. They’ve had seeds and were trying to create something resembling soil, using every method that came to mind, including the most gross and morbid ones. It never worked: something was just missing, stolen away by the Tree and the aliens.  
Sakura curled her legs up and wrapped arms around them, trying to rest a little, hoping to dream about flower crowns and birds.

The night brought only a shift in the shadows.

  


**Author's Note:**

> This fic was following me like a bad dream for over a year, but I couldn't figure out how to deal with certain things until recently.  
> The rating might go up after chapter 6


End file.
